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A design for designers?
Image: Jason Cipriani/ZDNet
My friend Edith asked for something very specific this year.
She’s happily retired and, when an overbearingly wealthy friend wanted to know what she wanted for Christmas, she had only one idea: “Oh, a new iPad Mini would be nice.”
Edith — of course I’ve changed her name for her own safety — moves in exalted circles, you understand. And the friend is as exalted as it comes, one of those who believes bigger is better and best is whatever they say it is.
At Christmas, Edith opened the gift from the friend and there was an iPad Pro. The friend knew best, of course.
Edith was crestfallen. She didn’t want something so big. She told me: “I want it to do my research on, for travel more often than not. And most often with a notebook in my other hand. And the small one is so much easier to carry when you travel.”
But how do you tell someone who thinks they know better that you didn’t appreciate their gift? You don’t.
So Edith went to an Apple store to beg them to swap her new iPad Pro for a Mini. Of course, she didn’t have the receipt, so the Apple store saleswoman had sympathy, but no offer of exchange.
Edith described the scene like this: “I told the rather nice girl in the Apple store the back story. Her swift rejoinder was not, as I was expecting, ‘Oh, an iPadPro — lucky you, it’s super, what a fantastic present.'”